In Cold Blood
By:
Truman Capote
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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Description:
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.
Description:
"Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans--in fact, few Kansans--had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there." If all Truman Capote did was invent a new genre--journalism written with the language and structure of literature--this "nonfiction novel" about the brutal slaying of the Clutter family by two would-be robbers would be remembered as a trail-blazing experiment that has influenced countless writers. But Capote achieved more than that. He wrote a true masterpiece of creative nonfiction. The images of this tale continue to resonate in our minds: 16-year-old Nancy Clutter teaching a friend how to bake a cherry pie, Dick Hickock's black '49 Chevrolet sedan, Perry Smith's Gibson guitar and his dreams of gold in a tropical paradise--the blood on the walls and the final "thud-snap" of the rope-broken necks.
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 1994-02-01
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Brutal Event in Journalistic Focus - This book is essentially a detailed and well-crafted piece of journalism with the level and quality of detail to bring it into horrific focus. One gets access to all sides of the murders of a family from the effect on the close relatives and friends to the emotional states of the murderers themselves and their final demise at the end of a rope. No one can escape this book without a large emotional wallop that will leave one's mind reverberating for some time. The book additionally invites questions concerning the limits and boundaries of journalistic integrity. When does the journalist step beyond his role as observer and become part of the story? And...Should the journalist do so and thus change outcomes? Disturbingly provocative in many ways.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Anarachy in the heartland : an American story - An excellent piece of investigative journalism. Although called the first "non-fiction novel" I don't consider it a novel. To do so would suppose that journalism is objective, it is not, and anyway by most accounts Capote mostly got it right. It's gripping journalism, extremely well researched, and very American. The juxtaposition of Capote, a liberal New Yorker, among the conservative mid-westerners should not go unnoticed. It strikes a chord with the American paradoxical character of "the new" versus "stability"; change versus safety; the search for frontier versus authenticity; the fear of anarchy versus the fear of authority; liberal versus conservative. On the one side the ultimate in safety, security and authority is represented by the Clutter family - and on the opposite side the killers, younger and free, represent change, "the new" and anarchy. Capote instinctively tapped into this dialectic and became part of it himself as an upstart homosexual New Yorker in the middle of stable, secure and patriarchal Kansas. This sort of "meta" author mirroring the story is the real aesthetic and creative achievement that has kept it a classic while later "new journalism" works, characterized by their use of literary techniques applied to non-fiction, have rarely if ever exceeded Capote's initial genesis.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
The first true crime book is still the best - Truman Capote arguably invented true crime, and still dominates with this spectacular classic. He took years to finish this book, his last book, and it shows in the brilliant prose. This is among my favorite books of all time. I recommend to everyone.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
In Cold Blood in a new edition - This is a great read, a great novel, and a great edition. Capote's work, his illuminating approach to life, exemplified by the contrasts of the killers, the victims, and the hunters of the killers, is a great work of art.
The book reproduces the original 1965 edition and although the paper is not as heavy, it certainly beats the previous smaller Modern Library edition.
When will publishers learn that in order to compete with Brittany Spears, life, death, taxes, and childbirth, they need to give readers beautiful editions with real cloth covers and heavy cream paper, something to treasure. Not some cheap cardboard edition such as, say, my collected Ginsberg, which already is turning brown and edging out of the binding. I'd rather pay another dollar for a $50 book and get something that will stay intact.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
A Commentary on our 21st Century Culture - I was a child when In Cold Blood was first published but remember the adults in my life talking about this controversial novel. After watching the two recent Truman Capote biopics (Capote and Infamous), I thought I should read it. I was surprised how much this 40+ year old book had to say about the anger, polarization and general lack of civility in today's society. A family is senselessly murdered in a small town in Kansas. Everyone in the town of 6,000 knew this family. After the murderers are apprehended, each minister in this community of 21 churches stood at his pulpit and spokeout AGAINST the capital punishment. Relatives of the slain family wrote a letter published in the local newspaper asking that prosecutors not pursue the death penalty. And when the murderers are returned to Kansas and are walked into the jail for booking, the audience who has gathered for this spectacle stands nearly silent. The town's citizens are relieved that it was strangers who commited this attrocity and they no longer have to eye their neighbors suspiciously. There is little talk of revenge or a sense of closure via the death penalty. What a fascinating view of our society on the cusp of the revolution of the 1960's and 1970's. READ THIS BOOK!
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